In this part of the market, people want to have something completely different to what their friends or rivals own
JOHN HENNESSEY on his 2400bhp six-wheeled EV project
Ah, 1 December. As with an advent calendar, your letterbox beckons with the month’s first treat – a copy of Autocar. Only instead of a little flap opening up to reveal a tiny chocolate elf, a large flap opens up to reveal the BMW Concept XM on the magazine’s cover. Crikey.
How do you like that, then? The XM (not to be confused with the quirky old executive Citroën of the same name) is BMW’S idea of a concept to celebrate its M performance division’s 50th anniversary. It will become a bespoke M model next year and is, according to M boss Frank van Meel, “more than 90%” of the way to being the production model.
The only other bespoke M car in the division’s history is, you might remember, the M1. So absolutely not a plug-in hybrid SUV. But here we are. Welcome to the new world. A few pages later, Richard Lane is driving the next big thing from Maserati, the famous Italian sports car maker. It’s an SUV based on the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Oh.
To whom can we turn to free us from this Suv-athon? How about Pininfarina, the famous Italian design house creating a new niche as a car manufacturer in its own right? I drove its first car, the Battista, an 1876bhp battery-electric ‘hyper GT’. And I will admit that it fairly blew me away. Not just because of the performance, which was expected, but also the way it handled and placed its power around, which wasn’t at all.
Sure, it’s £2 million and pointless and there will be only 150, but it introduces us to Pininfarina as a car maker. Thankfully, Pininfarina’s next model will be… oh, hang on, it says here that it’s an SUV.